


The Cliffhanger

by livsanto



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Anorexia, Bipolar Disorder, Bulimia, Depression, Drama & Romance, F/F, F/M, Fat Shaming, Humor, Self-Harm, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-04-21 05:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14277843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livsanto/pseuds/livsanto
Summary: As the wheels of fate start spinning, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. It’s coming... it’s coming for you.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all, English is not my first language, so I do apologize for any mistakes along the way.
> 
> This is my first attempt at writing on a fandom that is not Harry Potter, so let’s see, I’m excited!
> 
> This story is mirrored. Chapter 1's continuation are chapters 3, 5, 7...  
> While chapter 2 goes with 4, 6, 8...
> 
> From the first two chapters, the two sides of the mirror, you might be unable to see, but as the fanfic goes on, you’ll see one side go to one way as the other goes to another, so this is a two-in-one story and the reason for that is... Guess you’ll have to read it!

_Chapter_ _1  -_ Side A

 

_._

_September 5, Tuesday – Riverdale_

.

Betty watched with a small smile as the other girl strode into Riverdale High clicking her high heels onto the pavement floor on the first Tuesday after Summer break. Veronica Lodge, the new girl, walked in her general direction, reading a paper that she seemed to have folded and unfolded countless times, given its worn-out look.

She was either oblivious or very good at ignoring all the heads turning her direction as she passed. Props to the new girl.

“Hi, Veronica?” Betty waved at her after feeling guilty for letting her astray wondering through the halls, obviously looking for Betty, “I’m Betty, I’m giving you the tour through the school,” she smiled once again.

Veronica’s pretty features broke down into a smile. She was one of those people who smiled with their whole face, her smile reaching her dark brown eyes, decorated with her winged mascara. Her raven wavy hair went no further than her shoulder and moved smoothly as she inclined her head to extended a hand toward Betty.

“Oh, thank God. I have pretty thick skin, but all this ogling was getting to my last nerve. I feel like a wicked Sandra Dee waking down the halls.”

Betty shook her hand and smiled once again: fan of classics, isn’t she? Duly noted.

“People here don’t get out much. Don’t do much, they are just not that much,” a tragically precise statement if Betty ever made one. Not as uplifting as she was supposed to be with newcomers, but sadly true. It’s better to not let the new girl have high expectations.

High expectations led no one anywhere.

Veronica was surprisingly alert during Betty’s exposé of the school history, so much that she decided to not bother Veronica with it anymore. Better to keep that for those who were rude and uninterested, so Betty could draw some pleasure in knowing that people’s annoying remarks were met with a boring speech on her end. When you can’t beat them, annoy them.

“And that’s basically it,” she concluded arriving the same corridor they started off, “As it turns out, we have Literature together, so you can follow me to class,” she then looked at Veronica, who was giving her a mischievous grin, “What?” Betty asked her, grinning a bit herself.

“You might not know it yet, Betty Cooper, but you and I will do way more than share Literature classes together.”

Veronica Lodge was magnetic. She had none of that uptown girl crap one would expect from someone with that look, or that name. She was sweet, funny and didn’t seem to mind the fact that Betty was obviously a teacher’s pet since she was the one the director appointed to give her the tour. Her beauty was nothing like the mellow vanilla pony-tail lapeled-sweaters Betty relied on so much. Veronica looked expensive, from the tip of hair to the click of her hills as she parades around the school, her hips swinging. As far as Betty could tell, there was nothing remotely similar about them. Nothing that could bring the duo together as friends.

But then again Veronica _was_ magnetic. And Betty was tired of her damned sweaters. 

“Bring on the rain,” Betty said, at last, linking her arm with Veronica’s.

Aside from Veronica and herself, the only other person who looked alive during the lecture was Jughead Jones, Archie’s childhood friend, who was a bit too odd or too entitled to sit with them during lunch hours. She chose to believe that he was merely odd, as to give him the benefit of the doubt for Archie’s sake.

He was clever, and to Betty, that counted volumes over being intelligent. Anyone could memorize a book, few could apply its knowledge in the real world, and take from said world teachings to apply elsewhere. The boy was a sponge, a perfect marriage between street-smart and book-smart.

Not that she would ever tell him that, because despite trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, she actually truly believed he was an ass.

“Jughead,” she acknowledged him after the class was over.

To, you know, maintain peace in the kingdom and all that.

“Betty,” he said the in the same tone she used.

“Veronica Lodge!” the latter explained, reaching out a hand to him. He looked at Betty and then at Veronica’s hand again, shaking it at last, “Now that we all awkwardly said each other’s name, let’s all grab something to eat.”

Betty did explain to Veronica about the pathetic excuse for hierarchy in Riverdale High involving some of the cheerleader (not her, because she actually had stuff to do, like live her life) and the Football and Basketball teams. Apparently, she neglected to inform her about their own booth hierarchy that did not involve Jughead “brooding makes me mysterious and an asshole” Jones.

Oh well, her fault, she guessed.

“Let’s go”, she said picking up her things from the table, faster than any protest Jughead was undoubtedly about to spill.

After getting their food, Betty guided them both to the tables outside, where Kevin and Archie were already seated, the latter holding a guitar in his hands.

The weather was nice. A bit chilly, but nothing unexpected for Upstate New York, it was refreshing, even. She couldn’t suppress a broad smile when she seated across from her boyfriend, Archie. It’s been two years now, but she suspected she would never grow tired of his boyish smile while holding that guitar in his arms.

He smiled back, as he always did.

“Oh, Jughead!” Archie exclaimed, as the most annoyed person to ever sit in a table took his place, nodding his head, “And...” he looked at the new girl.

“Oh, Archie, this is Veronica Lodge, she is new in school,” Betty supplied, giving pointed looks to both Kevin and Archie to introduce themselves.

“I love everything about what you are wearing, I’m sold. She stays,” Kevin declared, “I’m Kevin.”

“Ohh, new gay bestie alert,” Veronica wore a devious smile.

“I’m not gay, by that logic, probably not suitable for a best friend then, but you seem to like my Betty, so I guess we are good”.

Veronica knocked her head up and laughed hard at what Archie had said. They all laughed, except for Jughead fucking Jones, obviously, because he had no sense of humor on top of having no social grace.

He could at least pretend to be part of it all: his best friend told a damn joke. And it was funny.

It was. Right?

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first two chapters will be pretty small, just to... set the mood.
> 
> The BIGGEST shoutout to my girl vickliebold who not only inspired me to write this story but is also my beta. You should all check my Varchie queen <3
> 
> See y'all pretty soon!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, the alternative reality, the other side of the mirror:

Chapter 2 - Side B

 .

_September 5, Tuesday – Riverdale_

_._

* * *

 

_All I know is that you're so nice_

_You're the nicest thing I've seen_

**Kate Nash - Nicest Thing**

* * *

 

The downfall would come in two weeks and, as for every major change in life, one would get too caught up in it by the time it comes, washing everything else away in its tsunami waves. Unable to break from it. Unable to breathe. Frozen in space. Just... unable. 

In two weeks, life as Betty Cooper knew it would fall apart, melt between her fingers the more she tried to hold on to it, but there would be nothing else to hold on too. There would only the downfall, the fallout, the car crashing over and over and over again, as a never stop movie in her head.

But right now, she was hunched over her books on her bed, surrounded by them, as she wrote three words in her notebook and raised her head to see if Archie Andrews had opened the curtains of his room yet.

Not that she would do anything different had he opened them. A heat would rise all over her body, tinting her cheeks red, which would force her to look away and to her books once again, unable to grasp the meaning of anything else she tried reading.

She couldn’t tell him, even though Kevin said that she should, that they have been friends forever and he would take her feelings lightly. But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him _because_ even though he might take them lightly, it didn’t mean he would reciprocate them.

And that would kill her. Archie Andrews, your epitome of boy-next-door, would kill her.

But she loved him, God, she wholeheartedly did. She would repeat his name over and over again in a desperate attempt to make those syllables hers. She wanted his name to be hers, since nothing else was, since that was the only thing she had any could control over.

“Archie Andrews,” and it was no higher than a whisper, no different than the thousandth time she said it prior. It was virtually nothing, but it was all she had, what she would cling on over and over again.

It sounded different on Veronica’s lips. The refined big-city girl who Betty couldn’t bring herself to dislike because she seemed alone and Betty knew first hand that no one deserved to feel alone. But then she said his name when Betty introduced them to each other and it sounded better out of her tongue, on her first try, than it had on Betty’s mouth for all those years.

She had beautiful shiny raven-hair and purple lipstick on her lips. She was quick-witted and well-read. She had a beautiful body and knew how to carry and present herself. She told a few stories about her New York life and listened carefully when Kevin or Archie shared a bit about Riverdale. Veronica was making an effort and it was easy to see she was open to the new experience that was dive head first in their small-town life.

She made Betty join the cheerleading squad with her, she was frightening when provoked but, as luck would have it, she decided to team herself up with Betty.

And with him. His name rolling through her mouth as if it belonged.

It took Veronica half period to realize Betty was head over heels for the boy next door and she prompted herself to help, and suddenly all the things she had been telling Kevin and herself were unimportant because that beautiful brunette girl decided that she could and should tell him how she felt.

She tried to argue but New Yorkers apparently didn’t understand what “no” meant and as a result, she and Veronica were going to the school dance with Archie, where she was supposed to tell him how she felt at the risk Veronica telling him herself.

And then it would be over. All over. She would tell him, and after so many years as his confident and best friend, she was pretty sure she could detect when he had the slightest interest in a girl.

And her refusal and stubbornness all came to the fact that she knew he didn’t feel anything towards her. She _knew_. Despite anything Kevin or Veronica could say, she knew.

He had no interest in her or the way his name left her mouth, even though she practiced over and over again, until sleep would take her over. But she didn’t miss the glint in his eyes when his names came from the other’s purplish lips mouth.

It sounded different in her mouth and Archie noticed it too.

She sat on her bed, unable to think of anything other than his face when she called his name for the first time.

She had her hands closed in fists and only noticed when blood was already streaming down her palms. Betty cleaned her hands on the pants of her pajamas and knocked all her books from the bed and lying down, with her eyes closed, saying _Archie Andrews_ over and over again.

Little did she know how, in two weeks, Archie Andrews would be the last of her problems, not even making the list of her worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not an usual plot nor an usual style of writing, but I hope you all will stick with me anyways. haha  
> THANK YOU to those who commented and gave Kudos, it made me really happy.  
> Another big thank you to my Varchie queen vickliebold: None of this would have happened without you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is continuation of chapter 1.

Chapter 3 - Side A

.

21, September, Thursday – Riverdale

.

“Little girls with big ideas are much scarier than monsters.”

**― Clementine von Radics**

* * *

One would think that Betty Cooper, total teacher’s pet and “most likely to succeed since her personal life was a bore so she might as well do something with all that free time, like study,” would hate not knowing something. But as she chewed her strawberry looking at Veronica’s displeased face, while the brunette stared at Archie and Val on the other side of the field, she decided that what she hated the most was knowing only bits and pieces of a story.

That particular one, as far as Betty recalled, started about a week ago.

It was during the tryouts for the Variety Show that Kevin, in all his glory and poise, hosted every year in Riverdale High.

Josie and the Pussycats, who would have to be a lot humbler if they intended to take their career out of the High School stage, were already scheduled to play, along with a magician, a belly dancer and whoever was that person doing mimic, not that she was judging, because it’s a bad thing to do and all. While, somehow, Archie didn’t make the cut.

“Archie”, Betty tried to hold his free hand as he stormed off the theater, having herself just arrived from her tutoring section. He knocked his hand out of her fingers and kept on power walking like someone who really had to pee and knew the bathroom was only at the other end of the corridor.

She tilted her head to the side and bit her lip as she watched him go until he disappeared from sight. Betty entered the theater in hopes of clarifying whatever it was that happened with Archie to Kevin, to maybe get him a second chance.

And there was Kevin, standing in the director’s chair throwing a bunch of papers into the air while gasping and potentially crying.

“Kev…?”

“I have four jugglers, Betty, FOUR! And God forbid at least one of them do something interesting like throw knives or balls of flame into the sky.”, Kevin said to Betty, but it could have been to anyone, really, he looked like he just wanted to vent.

“That’s odd because I’ve never seen anyone juggle down the corridors.”, she offered.

And then Kevin looked at her and Betty realized she shouldn’t have offered anything. She shouldn’t have been born, even.

“That’s exactly my fucking point! Fucking jugglers, go juggle some balls”, and then he went on saying all the obscenities a juggler could possibly do. He was really imaginative, that Keller boy.

Betty had walked into that theater to say something to Kevin, who organized the event, on Archie’s behalf, she truly did, but Kevin was so far gone with all those tryouts that she doubted she could snatch five coherent words from him to form a half-ass sentence.

She decided to give him some space and sneaked back from the way she came, completely unnoted by her friend who went back to throwing paper into the air.

She hadn’t given up. If there was one thing Betty Cooper was not was a quitter. She would wait a little bit, until, preferably, he had some food in his system so she could approach the subject with him. 

Betty picked up her tray of food and went to sit down in the table Archie was seated outside, hoping he would be less frustrated than the last time she saw him. About ten minutes ago.

Yeah, he’d still be pretty pissed.

The best course of action, she knew, was to leave him alone with his thoughts for a while. Archie was not big on brooding, he would come around and discuss what had been bothering, he…

“Don’t you have to practice for the Variety Show?” Jughead Jones. Of freaking course; who else? He sat _once_ at the cool kids’ table because she was generous enough to let him and suddenly he would be there every single day, saying all the wrong things.

Shouldn’t he be out brooding over dead animals, the environment or whatever it is that he did?

“No, I don’t,” he sounded way less defensive than Betty assumed he would, but monumentally crushed.

“Except that yes, you do,” and before Betty could interject, _she_ came along, “Thanks to a certain Veronica _Ex-Machina_ ,” the brunette sat down beside Betty and supported herself on her elbows to talk to Archie on the other side of the table.

“Excuse me?” Archie asked, while Kevin sat on the table by his side, still looking a bit distraught, but at least his hair looked tamer from the lack of pulling, “What do you mean?”

“Oh nothing,” she played around with the salad on her plate, never taking anything to her mouth, “just that I had a few words with our director/host and reminded him that he’s heard you sing on numerous occasions.”

Betty dropped the apple she was about to eat and stared at Veronica: How did she know? When did she have the time to pull this off? _What did she care?_ While Betty, who obviously had reasons to be interested in that whole deal, was forced to retreat given Kevin’s state.

“Even though it compromises my artistic integrity,” Kevin let out a small laugh through his nostrils as if recognizing a lost cause when he saw one.

“Cutting to the chase, you have a slot if you want it.” she finally plucked a small piece of lettuce inside her mouth, like that was no big deal, like Betty didn’t try to do it herself. Like Betty shouldn’t be the one to do it.

“Veronica thank you, but you saw what happened,” she did?

“We all did,” Kevin chipped in.

Archie let out all the air he seemed to be having holding in, tilting his head.

“Playing my song in front of you guys is one thing, but getting back up on the stage by myself … I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.”

“Of cours---“ Betty started to say, a big grin on her lips.

“If it’s a partner you’re looking for, Veronica Lodge is more than willing and able.”

“Veronica, I didn’t know you could sing,” Kevin said inspecting her from head to toe.

“Like a nightingale,” she said with a big smile on her face, raising her perfectly arched eyebrows to Archie in challenge.

And it was good, really. A few moments ago Archie was sure he wouldn’t be able to perform whereas now he had a chance. It didn’t matter if it was Veronica or Betty who pulled the strings; the important thing was that he was happy, right? Right.

Betty looked at Jughead across the table and he mouthed the word “breathe” to her. It was only then that she noticed she was clogging all the air in her lungs, afraid to let it out.

During that week, Archie called Betty in sheer excitement about Val dropping out the Pussycat to sing with him and the first shameful thought that crossed Betty’s mind was that he was living Veronica high and dry after she worked so hard to get him into Variety Show.

She breathed in and out before asking him what he would do about Veronica, because asking that was the right thing to do and Veronica was a _friend_ , she didn’t do anything wrong and she was actually taking that partnership seriously and practicing, as she told Betty that same day, called her to watch and give her pointers, even.

“I… I don’t know, Betty. I kinda forgot about her,” he confessed. And Betty smiled, her heart beating steadily slow. She knew she was being a bitch, she knew Archie was wrong, she knew Veronica would be crushed and God, she knew it all, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling, couldn’t stop herself from ending that phone call on a way smoother tone than it deserved.

And it may seem weird how Val’s face didn’t even cross her mind because she was not like Veronica, she wasn’t magnetic, she didn’t draw everyone to her just by standing there, she wasn’t that special.

The next day, when Archie hinted that he had replaced Veronica for none other reason than he was selfish, she was spitting fire. She refused to talk do Betty because she didn’t want to drag her into that issue, not knowing that Betty was already all the way in, cheering for the demise of previous partnership for reasons she did not know.

_But you do know, don’t you? It’s a matter of putting it into words, Betty, dear. Say it. Now say it._

“I joined the Pussycats,” Veronica told Betty a few hours later, as she sat by her side during Literature, “God knows I don’t want to drag you into it, Betty, but you also happen to be my friend, so I’m sorry if I’m crossing a line here, but I just need to gloat a little.”

“It’s fine, V,” Betty told her, because it really was, and the way that Veronica held her head high with that cat tiara on top was the epitome of dignity if she ever saw one, “For what it’s worth, I loved your cat ears.”

Veronica gave her a big grin before retrieving her sample of Oscar Wilde’s biography that they were analyzing alongside with his work on class.

When Betty looked straight ahead again, she saw Jughead’s beanie a few rolls ahead and the air around her suddenly felt heavy somehow, a little hard to breathe. She opened the book on a random page and spent half the class concentrating on breathing at a regular pace, not having any idea why the sight of Jughead, of all people, tipped her off so much.

She was still looking at the back of his head when the class ended and made a complete fool of herself when he turned around to acknowledge her, like he always did. 

“Hi, Jughead!” Veronica jolted, while Betty was still fumbling with her papers that feel on the floor, her hands shaking and sweat breaking on her forehead.

“Hey… Veronica,” Betty didn’t look at him, but she could feel his eyes locked on her as she tried to reorganize the mess she made, “Betty, need some help?”

“No,” she responded way too quick and way sharper than she intended, he raised his eyebrows, “I just… I can handle, thank you.”

“Sure,” he muttered under his breath, giving a tiny wave goodbye to Veronica on his way out.

“I know what you mean, he is kind of a weirdo,” Veronica supplied, kneeling on the floor next to Betty to help her out, despite her protests, “I don’t think he means any harm, though.”

_Veronica is probably right, Betty, you know. So, could that mean that whatever your problem with the boy is, is inside your head? That ingenious impeccable head of yours?_

A couple of hours later, Kevin’s Variety Show started. It wasn’t really Kevin’s, actually, it was the school’s, but he would make such a big deal out of it and present each attraction with that stupid magic’s hat of his that it was impossible to think of it as anything else. Betty got herself a seat on the first row, since Archie was so excited about his partnership with Val, who, as Betty has seen herself on many occasions, was really talented.

She wanted to support Archie and make sure he would see her face in the crowd and draw some comfort in the fact that a familiar face was cheering him on.

The Pussycats started playing and as far as Betty could recall there was always only three of them. And Val was supposed to play with Archie, but there she was, catsuit, high boots, and cat’s ear, besides Veronica, who didn’t seem fazed in the slightest about that change of events.

Betty didn’t hear a note of the song, obsessively thinking about how Archie would be able to play without his duo.

But suddenly there he was: big smile on his face and guitar strapped around his torso and Betty did all she could to not feel hurt for being left out of this new arrangement of things, but she began to breath faster despite herself.

He paused before sitting on his stool on the center of the stage and exchanged a few words with a person that had the silhouette of Veronica. Whatever it was that she said, it extracted the warmest smile of his lips and he gave a few steps further, reaching his stool, the first sentences of the song sang directed at that one girl in the pantomime.

Betty froze. Her chest seemed so tight that it hurt. Veronica wasn’t even in that fucking narrative, and now she was there giving encouraging words that shook all the fear of Archie. It should have been Val, it should have been _her._ Betty couldn’t listen to anything he was saying, her breathing getting louder and more desperate by the second.

That’s when she felt it. By her side, a set of pointy shoulders knocked gently at hers. It was Jughead, he had visibly slid down in the chair and she should only guess that his goal was to have his shoulders parallel with hers, touching. Betty looked at him with a quizzical look, as he opened his volume of Oscar Wilde’s bibliography and kept on reading, even though it was way too dark to make out any of the words.

_He knows._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins.  
> Thank you SO much for those who commented, kudo..ed (it's a verb, sure. Let's roll with that). You people make me really happy and I always want to know what you think! (:  
> A big thank you, as usual, for my girl vickliebold who is my beta, best friend and Varchie queen. <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death of a secondary character. You have all been warned!  
> This chapter is continuation of Chapter 2.

Chapter 4 - Side B

. 

21, September, Thursday – Riverdale

. 

_You’re fireproof_

_Nothing breaks your heart_

**_Fireproof – The National_ **

* * *

It was a lightning bolt. Fast, unpredictable, burning everything on its path. It was electrifying – all the pores in her skin seemed to be on high alert, her eyes wide-open unable to blink. It was suffocating – she would gasp for air one, two, three times but no oxygen seemed to be reaching her lungs.

Betty felt nothing, and everything all at once.

Her mother punched the police officer’s chest multiple times, demanding that he would stop, that he would go away, demanding that he would take the bad news away with him.

But he didn’t, he couldn’t, it was the lightning bolt, there was no taking back. There was only watching it burn.

Hal Cooper’s death took place on the evening of the 15th of September, just as Betty was about to get out to meet Archie, Veronica and Jughead at Pop’s. She dropped her purse and keys on the ground and stood motionlessly as her mother shouted at the porter of bad news.

She was freefalling, her stomach doing loops and her blood running cold. She blinked, and then blinked again but the bad feeling did not leave her as her knees shook uncontrollably and that man stood still by the door.

And so it begun: the downfall, the fallout, the car crash. And it was almost ironic that Hal’s death was caused by a car crash, because Betty felt that she was perpetually in one, watching the world rolling upside down, destroying everything around it, while she prayed for it to stop.

Her father’s car was found by the shore of the Sweetwater River and it seemed like he’d had something to drink. Kevin kept a hand on her knee while she and her mother went down to the station to find out exactly what happened. His hand was warm but he had a look on his face, as if he was commanding his expression to express how sorry he was and that made her sick.

“Oh my God, _Betty,_ ” and two days later Veronica had her arms around her, when she decided to go to school. It was how warm she felt and the way she’d said Betty’s name that broke her resolve to act like she was ok, like she was holding up.

She hugged Veronica back, and the world disappeared a little bit as she hid her face on the crook of her best friend’s neck. She cried for what seemed ages and she was still so confused that she didn’t have words to express none of it.

After she calmed down a bit, Veronica took her by the hand and lead her to a bench outside the school’s propriety, and it was only then that Betty realized that she was a sobbing mess and was not ready to fit in Riverdale High just yet.

“There are no words, Betty,” Veronica told her, and the usual glint of chirpiness in her eyes was not there. “So I’ll just let you say whatever you want. Or nothing at all, if that’s what you wish.”

And Betty thought of a million things to say, but it all came crashing with the same speed as her father’s car. So she just shook her head and covered her face with her hands, rocking slightly, as Veronica soothed her, caressing her hair..

It was a particular cold day, and Betty thought her whole face would freeze from her tears. And all she could hope for is that it would, because feeling that desperate, that desolated was like coming apart in slow motion.

She thought that she would be the talking type; that she would want to tell Veronica of her memories with her father, thought she would want to confess that he had a thing for silly holiday sweaters or that he sang when he thought nobody else was around, but she didn’t. As it turned out, she was the quiet type, reviewing it all in her head like a never-ending movie: her own private daydream. Her own private nightmare.

Alice flipped when, three days later, they informed her they found her earrings on the car’s floor, except they weren’t hers, and Betty knew it the moment Alice’s eyes grew wide as she saw one of the small dangling pieces. She thanked the officer and accompanied him out like the proper host she was, and then she started throwing everything at arm’s length against the opposite wall. Betty kept still as the car kept on crashing over and over again.

School was still absolutely unbearable, because she didn’t have time to mourn after her father with all those witnesses who had never spoken to her before, giving her their sentiments. To fucking hell with their sentiments. She tried to hide behind her friends. but they too were wearing those sorrowful expressions and she was torn between crying and ripping their heads off.

Veronica asked her if she wanted to talk some more. Archie asked her if she wanted to come over later. Jughead asked her if she wanted him to lock the door at Blue and Gold so she could be alone, and she took on his offer. He was the only one not wearing that “I’m sorry for your loss” mask, so she told him about the earrings and about her suspicious that no one just went to Sweetwater River to hang out, that there was some other woman there.

He seemed deep in thought for a while, his dark hair falling off that beanie he always had on and then he told her that he couldn’t think of an innocent excuse for someone to park their car at the River’s shore at night in the end of Summer, and she was thankful for him because it was not what she wanted to hear, but what she had to.

But as soon as she got her feet out of the newspaper door, the car kept on crashing again, everything turning.

“I hate how people look at me,” she told Archie while sitting at his porch a day later. He lent her his trusted letterman jacket and seemed unbothered by the still unusually cold weather.

“And how do people look at you?” He asked but already knew the answer, she realized, as he avoided her eyes, knowing that he too had done the same thing to her.

“Like they pity me.” She stretched her legs and rocked her feet from left to right, like the pendant of a clock. Always ticking. “They say they are sorry for my loss and automatically assume I’m broken to pieces, and so I must be pitted.”

“I don’t think people go that deep into their thought process, Betty, they just say the only thing there is to say,” because _it was_ all that could be said. And it was raw and shallow and there was a void inside of her that no words could ever fill.

“I don’t mean their words, Archie, I mean their expressions,” Archie seemed to be considering something and she knew he thought she was crazy because no one other than Betty Cooper would go as far as to analyze people’s facial expression while saying their condolences for her dead father.

“I can always beat them up,” he offered, at last. And that was the first time Betty sustained a smile that whole week.

There was a will to be read and it all seemed absolutely ridiculous because it was only her mother and her, sitting down at their living room with some sleazy looking man unfolding a document before them, since Polly was trapped in the airport and wouldn’t make it in time.

Betty closed her eyes and one single tear fell from her face and it seemed like the whole ocean was swallowing her and ripping her limbs apart as she tried to keep afloat. But there was no air.

There was no air.

There was no air.

There was no air.

There was only debt, it seemed.

The Riverdale Register hadn’t been profitable for the last four years, which led Hal to put a mortgage on the house they lived in to cover the paper’s expenses. In short, it meant that Betty had been living in a paper house that was as fleeting as the leaves floating with wind on the streets just outside her front door.

Hal Cooper left Betty an impossible debt and some stranger’s earrings.

And she had been good. She got all the grades he had told her to get. All the extracurricular activities that would get her wherever he wanted her to go next. All the grace a good woman could ask for.

He strived for perfection and that’s what she was while dancing to be beat of his drums.

To fucking hell with him.

Betty had a cigarette in one hand and a lighter on the other, she was trying to figure out the mechanics of the whole thing and how it seemed so natural for so many people. She wanted to smoke, drink, break her curfew and whatever else there was for a rebellious teenager to do because she was _so angry._

She checked one more time if she was placing the right tip on her lips and felt a bit ridiculous by holding the cigarette in her mouth.

“Now you light it up,” Jughead offered, as he sat next to her.

They were supposed to be in class, but she didn’t feel like going, because that’s what her father would have wanted, so she scored a cigarette with some older kids that hanged near the school instead.

She hadn’t noticed Jughead was there until he opened his damned sarcastic mouth and she gasped surprised by his presence.

The fucking cigarette fell on the floor.

“You aren’t thinking of picking it up, are you?” He asked, but since he was the reason she dropped it the first time, he could turn his judgmental eyes the other way if that truly disgusted him.

“I sure am, Jug.” She told him while picking it up. It looked the same to her, “Not going to let some dirt get in the way of my new habit”.

“It’s not a very good habit.”

“It’s a habit nonetheless.” He was infuriating at times because he was one of those people who seemed really quiet and then they would become friends with you and never shut up again.

She plucked the cigarette back in her mouth again and lit it up, the tip begging to burn as the conscious that she had to do something with it flooded her system. She took in a deep breath and instantly felt her insides catch on fire, coughing like she just escaped a building in flames.

He laughed. And she thought of telling him to shut the hell up but _it was_ a bit ridiculous, so she laughed as well at her first attempt to rebel against her father dictatorship.

“I told you it was a bad habit.”

“I thought you meant for my health”

“Well, long term, sure, but I thought you were just going to burn yourself with it. Hence: bad.”,] He had a way of lowering his eyebrows as he was making fun of people that made it kind of impossible to get really angry at him.

But the truth was it was never meant to be a long term thing, it was meant to hurt him. His memory, his legacy, whatever it was that was left of him, because she was hurt too.

“We can just sit here for a while, then.” He said, and she silently agreed, still burning from inside out.

And it had nothing to do with the cigarette.

And suddenly there was a wild fire inside of her aching to destroy everything Hal had ever touched, everything he’s ever desired because he was a _fraud_. When Polly arrived she held Betty tight because she was ripping every piece of clothe he had ever gotten her, every book he had ever bought her, and shouting about setting on fire everything that he had ever touched.

She hated him. She hated what he did to his family, leaving them with nothing but debts and the evidences of his sins. She hated that he was the cause of her mother falling apart. But most of all, she hated how she wasn’t even allowed to miss him because he was a pile of shit who ruined their lives.

And hate is good because hate burns the fire that keeps one alive. So she hated him and the days went by and she was too busy being consumed by flames to miss him at the dinner table. She hated him because she was lost and she didn’t want people to feel sorry for her and everybody needed something to feel alive, to help them keep going.

Betty had hate.

Her mother told her they couldn’t stay in the house because Hal had taken so much money out of the Register’s cashier that they owed the equivalent of their own house by now, and it was too late to try and turn the profits around. She didn’t argue because her ever so fast beating heart didn’t really allow her to hear anything that wasn’t its incessant noise.

Archie held her tight the following day, in a way that seemed a bit too intimate and unnatural for them, when she mentioned the moving, and she felt nothing but apathy from his touch, and she briefly wondered who the hell she was.

Veronica and Jughead helped her and Alice to ready the house for the memorial, and it occurred to her that neither Jughead nor Veronica had ever been in her house, and it was only fitting that her friends got to have a glimpse of her life before it all changed for good.

The memorial was prettier than he deserved and people she had never seen before took turns into shaking her hand and telling her how sorry they were, and she wanted to scream. She looked at Veronica, Archie and Jughead, all sitting in a corner and they had solemn expressions on their faces, but none of that sorrowful bullshit she hated so much, so she lied to her mother that she was feeling bad and fragile and wanted to sit with her friends.

They didn’t say much to each other because they all knew that situation was more complex than just the death of her father: it was Betty’s lack of a north star, it was her despair, it was the house she grew up in and how she was forced to move because her father was the car crash himself.

Veronica told her she could live with her, and Betty knew she meant it because Veronica was just like that, but she couldn’t abandon her mother, since Polly would be going back to San Francisco soon. It occurred to her that she was once again acting like the good girl, but her mother had nothing to do with the sins of her father. so she declined the offer.

After the memorial was over, however, she learned that whatever it was that was eating her alive, was eating her mother as well:

“We are going back to where I came from, Betty.” Her mother told her as she started to put the remaining of the food aside. “We are going to the Southside.”

And there was the fire and the lightning and it seemed to Betty that it was only fitting she was moving somewhere she could unleash it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish I could explain better to you guys about up coming doubts regarding the plot, but I don't want to spoil anything! HAHAHAH  
> I can say, though, that my ship inclinations are Bughead and Varchie. If that's not what you see in the story right now it's because it's coming. (;  
> (I also realize this was written a bit different from what you'd usually get in a fanfic in English, but I hope you like it anyways.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, these warnings are going to become a common thing in this story: there are graphic content about Bulimia and self-loathing in this chapter. If you are triggered by any of it, don’t read it.

Chapter 5 - Side A

 .

31, October, Tuesday – Riverdale

.

 

 

_Then love until we bleed_

_Then fall apart in parts_

**Until we Bleed – Kleerup**

 

* * *

 

As she was tying and untying the belt around her waist, unsure of what looked best, Betty realized she didn’t quite remember agreeing to that whole parade: it was Cheryl’s Halloween party in Thornhill, and saying that there was no love lost between them would be the understatement of the year. Betty would’ve been way more comfortable if it was Jason’s party instead, even though she only spoke to him a handful of times, with either Cheryl or Polly watching her like a hawk.

She felt like telling them both that she already had a ginger of her own, but failed to see how that would help, as it would look as if she was on a hunt for redheaded people, so she kept that observation to herself.

The more she thought about it, more this whole “invitation” to Cheryl’s party seemed like a trap to her: Archie got invites ever since he joined the Football team, but they were never extended to her. The whole thing sounded way more like bait to her than anything else.

 _Truthfully, Betty, you were wondering why this year was different, and you finally had an invitation in your hands, but now you had Veronica at your side too, and everything that was associated with her deserved to be praised as well. Including the likes of you._  

Veronica dismissed her concerns by telling Betty she was paranoid, but the other girl didn’t see Cheryl’s face after she invited them. There was a gleam in her eyes, a gleam of rolling the dices in the right number, ready to wipe out all the white army pieces of the board.

Cheryl was creepy as fuck.

“I’m telling you, V, it’s a trap,” Betty said as both girls sat on a table inside the cafeteria for lunch. The weather was a bit chilly already, and they both still had wet hair from washing off after the Vixens’ practice.

“Oh my God, will you let it go already? Cheryl is not that smart,” Veronica told her for the tenth time, but call it a gut-feeling or whatever, she could say that something evil was on its way.

_Or call it paranoia, Betty. Veronica already figured you out, why not call it by the name it had._

Jughead and Archie joined them at the table, and Jughead had, literally, all the food that was being offered in the cafeteria that day on his plate. He immediately started eating, unaware of the short silence his monumental plate had caused. 

Betty shook her head and continued with the previous discussion. “You didn’t see her face when you accepted those invitations. 

“You are being crazy,” Veronica was stabbing her bow of fruits with her fork, obviously annoyed at that point.

“Are you two talking about the party?” Archie chirped in, an apple on his hand. “Isn’t Jason going to be there? He is fine, even though Cheryl is evil.” Betty didn’t know exactly how was it that he heard of the party or why was Jason Blossom suddenly on his ‘good people’ list, but she would bet Cheryl’s party was a hot topic among the football players as well.

_There was a lot of things you didn’t know these days, wasn’t it?_

“I agree that they do balance each other out, but what could Jason possibly do to stop some sort of plan from Cheryl? Being nice about it isn’t going to cut it.” Jug said as he worked his way through his pile of food. He was making it in good time.

“You were invited?” Betty asked. It wasn’t all that weird from Archie to have heard about the party as he played alongside Jason, but Jughead? She was shocked he even knew who Jason was.

“By Archie, so yeah.” He shrugged. That sounds more accurate, yes.

“You two are both paranoids, has anyone ever told any of you that?” Veronica pointed her fork to Jughead and Betty, who was a bit shook that she and Jughead shared any kind of interest of definition. “It’s just a party.”

 _What did you expect, Betty?_ _He knew, didn’t he?_

“If it were only Cheryl, I’d agree with you, Betty, but as it is, Ronnie is right,” Archie said between bites, and it didn’t go through her head that had called Veronica _Ronnie_ , and that this was a new thing. 

“Care to make this interesting?” Jughead asked, and Betty shook her head to organize her thoughts.

“Whatever do you mean?” Veronica asked as she was having a sip of her juice.

“If this is some kind of trap, you two owe us whatever our hearts desire at Pop’s,” it was only fitting that the guy with a bottomless stomach would ask for more food, but as it was, Betty caught herself chucking and teaming up with him.

“And if we lose, we won’t bring up any conspiracy theories for a week.” Betty offered, and Jug nodded in approval.

 _Since Archie had Ronnie, right?_ 

“A month,” Veronica said, with a glare..

“Deal.” both Betty and Jughead said at the same time. She could always go for Kevin if she wanted to dwelve into some conspiracy drama, no harm in not sharing it with Veronica and Archie.

“Wonderful, now that we took all that negativity out of the way, how about we settle how to get there and back?” Veronica finished her plate and dragged the tray to the side, away from her.

“I could ask my father,” Archie said. 

“Or my mother,” Betty suggested.

They all looked at Jughead.

“Don’t look at me, I’m shamelessly going to hop on whoever’s ride it is”

“As we may get a drink or two, I was going to suggest my father’s chauffeur, Andre.” Veronica laid back on her seat a little bit, a sly smile on her face.

“Best suggestion on the table so far.” Archie acknowledged, and Betty nodded in agreement.

“I don’t really intend on drinking,” that was obviously Jughead.

“Don’t be such a fun-sponge, Jughead. So, are you all in?” Veronica asked and they all agreed, that is, at least that’s how they choose to interpret Jughead’s shrug.

_And suddenly, it was all settled, all thanks to wondergirl Ronnie._

It was about 7pm, and they were about to go out and wait for Veronica’s lift. Betty was at Archie’s house porch, dressed as Amelia Earhart. He came to the door dressed as a _football player_ , with a big grin on his face when he saw her, and Betty forgot to tell him that he was wearing the least imaginative costume known to men, because his smile made it up for his lack of imagination.

“You look great, Betty,” he told her, wrapping his hands around her waist and bringing her to a kiss.

“You too,” it was only a half lie if one stopped to think about it: he did look great indeed, it just happened to be the most boring set of costume one could possibly wear.

_Things already seemed shook as they were, no reason to add fuel to that fire that had become your relationship with Archie._

“Easy there on the display of affection, lover boy.” Veronica arrived clicking her high heels on the pavement like she always did. The wing she usually applied over her eyes was especially longer and sharper that night, her hair slit back like it was wet and her body covered in a jumpsuit. _She_ looked great.

“Now, now, cat woman, I’m sure we’ll find you a handsome Batman at the party, no need to rain on our parade,” Betty told her as they both hugged, Veronica squeezed her tight against her body and Betty almost forgot how uneasy she was feeling about that whole Cheryl Blossom hosting a party thing.

“Are we ready to leave?” Veronica asked as soon as she kissed Archie on the cheek.

Archie’s face was just a little bit pinker. “Not yet, we are waiting on Jug.”

Jughead… Who strangely enough seemed more and more like part of their little group.

“Hope he has a bit more of an imagination than you, actual football player Archie.”

Betty laughed hard, throwing her head back because that was precisely what she didn’t find the opportunity to tell him moments ago. But Veronica obviously always did, since she wasn’t the one in a relationship with Archie and wouldn’t hurt his feelings if she sounded like a bitch.

Or maybe she did sound a bit like a bitch, but that was fine as it matched her personality. Or she was just pretty enough to get away with it. Either way, good for her.

Jughead finally arrived, and Betty saw no sign of a costume whatsoever, which lead her to frown at him before he could even open his mouth.

“Easy there, Amelia Earhart, I’ve got a costume, no need to look at me like that.” He had a smile on his face and both hands to the air, and Betty caught herself softening her hard expression, because if anything else, he was the first one to recognize who she was supposed to be.

_And again, he always seemed to know._

“Are you supposed to be that guy who always has a beanie on and a book on his hand?” Archie tried, and Betty thought that, as far as she could see, he was spot on.

Jughead then took a small object from the pocket inside his jacket. It was a pair of black framed glasses, and Betty laughed once again when he put it on because the guy was, indeed, kind of genius.

“I’m Clark Kent, obviously.”

“You mean if Clark Kent was sort of alternative looking?” Veronicas asked him, but she also had a small smile on her face.

“Or had weak physic,” Archie added.

“You are dressed as a damn football player, and that’s what you do in real life, Archie. Don’t suggest that _I’m_ the one who is reaching,” he took his glasses from his face and put it back in his jacket.

“Now, if we are all ready, I say we go!” Veronica said pointing at her car. 

They all started walking towards the car, and Betty felt once again like she was being trapped.

It wasn’t that long of a ride, but for Riverdale’s standards, it might as well be on the other side of the world. Betty kept on feeling her stomach turn. They had a conversation in the car, but she was too far off to pay attention or be part of it, as Veronica and Archie kept on laughing at whatever joke was told.

It was past eight o’clock when they arrived Thornhill, and the gates that seemed perpetually closed were open this time, a line of cars waiting to get in as large amounts of people crossed the gates by feet.

The house was still dark even though lights were coming through the windows of the main hall, while the rest was pitch black. There was also light in some room on the second floor. The music was making the inside of the car tremble, and Veronica let out an excited scream as they got out of the car.

And Betty looked at her as they stood in front of the mansion and she wished she could turn off her brain and just enjoy herself like Veronica and Archie seemed to be doing, but Jughead at her side was also uneasy and raised her an eyebrow as Jason appeared with a tray filled with small plastic cups on it.

“Archie!” he shouted as he made his way to them. “You made it! With Jughead.”, he looked at the boy inkling his head.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jughead told him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I thought this wasn’t your scene. Next time I’ll make sure to invite you myself then,” and Jason did seem nice, but it occurred to Betty it was a little creepy that he knew what kind of scene Jughead was supposed to like as they didn’t share a single class or extracurricular together.

“I’ll be waiting!” Jughead said with one of his eyebrows raised, and it seemed to Betty that all her train of thoughts occurred to him as well. 

“Jason, what is it that you are carrying on that tray?” Veronica, who was apparently done with that conversation asked, her hands on her hips and her big brown eyes wide open at Jason.

_That’s what they call flirting Betty. Maybe you should take notes as you are the most boring person alive._

“Oh, these are jelly-shots! I came over here to offer it to you guys. I made them myself.”

They looked at each other, and Archie and Veronica automatically reached out a hand to take the small cup. Archie looked at Betty as she didn’t move.

“I think I’ll pass,” she told him, giving Jason a small smile.

“I expected it from Jug, but come on, Betty, don’t be a fun-sponge,” Archie asked her as he reached for a cup and presented her with it, repeating the exact same words Veronica had said earlier on.

She took the cup from his hands and drank it in one sip, her throat burning with the alcohol. She wasn’t used to drinking.

“Welcome to the party!” Jason told them, indicating the entrance.

It was intoxicating, way more than the alcohol the picked up in the bar. Jughead didn’t join them, heading outside. Betty got to dance floor, that was just Thornill’s front lobby, while still holding Archie’s hand as the lights and the song took over all her senses, and she felt coherent thoughts abandoning her. The rest of the house was closed and off limits, so there was only the light, the music, and her body moving according to the rhythm.

The place was packed, and she feels suffocated every time the bass seems to be a bit too loud. She told Archie that she was going to pick up another drink because it the loud music physically hurt her chest. Veronica asked her if she wanted company, but she barely acknowledged as she just wanted to get out.

_You are afraid of how much you like it. How great it feels to be out of control._

Betty crossed the dance floor and hung her head back, tired, as she finally reached the bar behind the main stairs, apparently bumping into every single football player in the team as she made her way in. Everybody in their year seemed to be there. 

“Can I get a Cuba Libre, please?” because she once heard that alcohol required lots of sugar to not intoxicate a person and she thought Coca-Cola was the most suited mix to help her preserve some of her right mind.

“It’s going to make you drank regardless,” and suddenly Reggie Mantle was by her side, and Betty was trying to remember ever speaking to him in her life, “Even with the Coca-Cola. I tried.”

“I’m stubborn just like that, think I’ll try for myself,” she told him, and he smiled at her, and it occurred to Betty that from whoever was looking at it from outside would appear that they were flirting.

So, she caught her drink from the bartender and turned on her heels before Reggie could say anything else because he was known to hit on girls and she absolutely could not let Archie think she was one of those girls. The ones who flirted with other people, the ones who cheated.

_The funny thing was that deep down, Betty, you were kind of wondering if Archie was one of those boys. Very, very deep down._

Betty squeezed her way in and got herself to the dance floor, where Veronica and Archie were at, and by the time she arrived, a particularly strong light hit her eyes, and she was unsure if Archie was reaching out to her or to Veronica, who was just by her side.

She froze, and time and space seemed like abstract concepts as she felt her body being pushed and pulled by the other people dancing to the beat of the song as she stood still, her heart on her hands.

The next minute Veronica was reaching for the straw in her drink and giving her thumbs up after she had a sip of it.

_What else is she having a sip of?_

And there she was, intoxicating, just like the music, the lights, and the alcohol. Her black jumpsuit absorbing all the colors shining, and she shook her head in the rhythm of the music while everybody seemed to be looking, and Betty couldn’t take her eyes off her because it would hurt. Betty would never absorb the light and the attention of her surroundings. She would never shake her head to the beat of a song and still look mesmerizing. She would never make dancing look like something exotic and intimate at the same time.

_You’ll never be Veronica._

Jughead then appeared next to them, obviously annoyed by the number of people around him and by being bumped all the time. He turned to Betty and pointed at the top of the stairs on the hall, and there was Cheryl, looking down at all of them, a dangerous smile on her face.

“We were right, this is a trap,” he shouted in her ear, making her final move.

Cheryl clapped her hands twice, and the music was turned off at the same time the lights turned on, all eyes are on her. Everybody stopped moving and stared at the beautiful red-haired girl wearing a Harley Queen costume. She seemed more comfortable in her skin than ever before.

“Thank you all for coming. I’d like to invite the inner circle for a private party on the second floor.” She does a dismissive movement with her hands as if scoffing the rest of them like they were dirt under her shoes. “I trust you know who you are.”

Betty for once was glad she is not included in whichever exclusive group Cheryl has cocooned, still feeling dizzy from the lights and the song (and probably the alcohol as well).

She was thinking of passing her drink to Veronica, as the other seemed to like it when Cheryl’s voice comes again.

“Archie, Betty, and Veronica, get your beautiful behinds up here as well,” she sounded sweet, but Betty knew that their summoning was far from a suggestion. “This includes you too.”

“You owe us food,” Jughead says pointing to both Archie and Veronica, passing through them and advancing through the stairs, ignoring the fact that his name wasn’t called.

_If only you were half as confident as he was, right, Betty?_

They were led to a room up the stairs to the left. The decoration seemed expensive and old-fashioned, if someone wanted Betty’s opinion. They had hardwood boards on the walls with shelves full of breakable objects on them. The curtains at the adjacent wall were deep burgundy, and the room felt warmer with the dim lights on. The music started playing down the stairs as soon as Cheryl closed the door behind them. No sign of Jason around.

There was a three seat sofa, in front of two armchairs, standing next to a couple of chairs. In the middle, there was a table also made of deep-colored wood, just like the walls surrounding them.

Cheryl made a sign for them to sit and Betty, Archie, and Veronica sat down, with Jughead standing behind them. It was only then that Betty saw who the hell Cheryl’s inner circle was and she was not surprised to find the most memorable members of her year spread around the room.

Josie and Reggie sat on the armchairs in front of her, and the latter gave her a smile. Betty turned her face the other direction and adjusted her clothes.

_Oh Betty, Betty, if only you had any confidence at all._

“Who wants to tryst in the closet of love first?” Cheryl asked pointing to a closet at another end of the room, while walking like up and down the room, observing them all.

It occurred to Betty that Seven Minutes in Heaven was one of the most juvenile games she could ever think of, and it was bit absurd that Cheryl’s had ambushed them into that room only to lock a couple of them in a closet like a bunch of ten-year-olds.

She let out a chuckle and looked around her to see who would be the first one to protest. The only eyes meeting hers were Cheryl’s.

“My vote is “A” for Archie,” she looked right at Betty’s eyes when suggesting and Betty felt her stomach turning into knots as it was obviously not her place to answer for Archie and tell Cheryl how ridiculous it all was. “Anyone care to second it?”

“Wait, actually…” Archie tried, but it wasn’t loud or assertive enough.

“He is Betty’s…” Jughead protested at the same time, his voice louder than the boy before him.

“Yes, Andrews! Yes.” Reggie interrupted them both and clapped his hands. He looked at Betty and shrugged, mouthing something that looked a lot like _‘though luck’._

“All right, gather round, kids,” Cheryl said, and Betty suddenly couldn’t move, her back glued to the couch.

“This is ridiculous,” she tried. And her voice _was_ loud enough, but Archie remained quiet and her protest died in the luxurious room they were all in.

“My house my rules, Betty, dear. Now let’s see who is riding the ginger stallion tonight.” She gave Betty a wink and placed a Cherry Cola’s bottle over the table, and to think she had that in hands that whole time made Betty feel like she was merely a pawn in that game.

She spun the bottle. Cheryl stood still beside the couch afterward but there was no sign that she could manipulate the bottle to land on her.

If only she could. It landed on Veronica.

_And you may scream and protest all you like, Betty, but if Archie wasn’t putting much of a fight, then you can imagine what he would do now that he had the opportunity to be alone with his Ronnie. He might even tell you to shut up._

“Oh, no way!” Reggie exclaimed and then pressed his hands across his mouth as this was all turning better than he could ever expect.

Betty was feeling light-headed, still waiting for Archie to say something, _do_ something, so that humiliation would stop.

“It’s clearly pointing to… the new girl. This should be fun,” and it was like she planned for it to happen. And maybe she did.

“Um… I’m not doing this. Betty and Archie are my friends.” but it was Veronica who intervened, and she was apparently on edge about the whole thing which made harder for Betty to antagonize her.

_But she was so goddamn better you._

“That’s up to you.” Cheryl started walking again as soon as she picked the bottle up the table. “But if you don’t, house rules decree the hostess gets to take your turn.”

Betty was unaware that she was swallowing hard until Veronica turned to her and held in her arms and said _‘don’t let her get to you’_ in Betty’s hair. She stood up and made a movement with her head for Archie to come along, to which he followed, squeezing Betty’s hand as he stood.

_And it felt like he was saying goodbye._

Someone let out a whistle as the door closed and Betty couldn’t breathe. She blinked as images of Veronica dancing earlier that night splashed through her mind, and she felt hopeless because she couldn’t make her body move that way.

Archie had extended his hand and Betty couldn’t tell if it was for her or Veronica but now, looking in retrospective, how could it be for her? She was nothing, not even worth a protest

People were still talking, and Betty couldn’t distinguish the voices nor the words they spoke as her breathing caught in her throat, and she tried to let it out and then in again, at a steady pace.

But she couldn’t, God knows she couldn’t. She picked her purse next to her and left the room almost running, ignoring the shouts behind her: telling her to go, telling her to stay.

_Telling you there was nowhere to escape to._

She found herself outside the house in a blink of an eye, and she couldn’t remember crossing the dance floor, but apparently, she did. She felt ugly. And fat. Betty was consumed by the thought that she was not good enough, that she was not magnetic, that she was merely the girl next door and had no chance against all Veronica had to offer.

She was by a three in the yard, and she still couldn’t breathe through her tears as she felt not pretty enough, not thin enough, just not enough.

She _was_ bigger than Veronica. She was bigger than them all. Cheryl was always going on and on about her not being able of being on top of a pyramid because she was fat, and yes, Cheryl was a hurtful bitch, but maybe just that once she had a point.

Maybe she had a point because it was the first time she felt like she could put her finger on what was it about Veronica that made her so insecure.

_She is thin, you aren’t. You aren’t enough._

But this she could fix, and suddenly all she wanted to was to fix her weight and her looks so Archie could have someone worthy of him by his side, and maybe, just maybe, it would be her.

So, she shoved her finger inside her throat, and there was an inkling sensation on the roof of her mouth followed by her stomach turning violently as she could no longer keep her drinks and her dinner inside. She vomited, she vomited it all, until there was nothing left to go. Until she was empty.

_Congratulations, Betty. You just had your first Bulimic episode._

“Betts? Are you all right?” Jughead touched her shoulder, and he didn’t seem fazed by the fact that she was obviously throwing up.

But _she_ did. She felt dirty and disgusting, and her head was spinning so hard she felt like sitting down and putting it between her knees to scream. But she couldn’t, because _he_ was there.

“I’m fine, Jughead, go back inside.” She cleaned her mouth with the back of her hand, and she felt tired, she was exhausted.

“I don’t want to go back inside. I never wanted to.”

“Then why did you come?” She asked, turning her head his direction. He didn’t have his glasses on.

“I thought it was a group thing and I had to take one for the team,” he shrugged, his hands falling from her shoulder to her arm. “Hell, I thought you were in it for the same reason I was,”” Jughead grabbed her by the elbow and guided her to a bench nearby in the yard.

“I was trying to shut my better judgment and give this party a try. I was obviously right the first time around,” Betty told him because the weirdo, Jughead Jones, was surprisingly easy to talk to.

He didn’t mention the fact that she threw up and she was glad beyond words that he didn’t. There was no natural explanation for it, although he would probably assume it was the drinking.

They stayed in silence for a bit and Betty was still feeling exhausted, her head light from all the stress of the night.

 _Form all the throwing up of the night, you mean._  

“You know she just got in there to prevent Cheryl form going, right?” He suddenly said, his face straight.

“And how would you know that, Jug?” She turned to look at him, watching him shrug for the thousandth time that day alone.

“Because she adores you. And more importantly, so does Archie,” he turned to her this time and the way he said it made her smile a little bit despite herself.

“He shouldn’t have let Cheryl manipulate him in the first place,” she told him. And honestly, it all happened because he was unable to stand his ground 

“True, but you know as much as I do that Archie can be a bit gullible.”

_Not necessarily. Maybe it was not that he didn’t stand his ground. Perhaps he just didn’t want to. Perhaps, the idea of being with anyone but her, made him shut his mouth._

Her eyes started watering, and she blinked a couple of times while looking up. She was done for that day. Done battling against her head. Done losing.

“I feel stupid for giving Cheryl what she wanted, but I couldn’t stay,” she confessed, even though she couldn’t imagine being in the room for a second longer.

“She just wanted to cause a scene and make everybody feel bad about themselves.”

“Well, mission accomplished,” Betty smiled. And it was the saddest smile one could ever give.

“You have nothing to feel bad about, Betts,” and there he repeated it. Betts. He said it when he first found her, but she was still too far gone to process it. She couldn’t remember anyone calling her that ever before.

“Except that I’m not a Veronica,” her resentment tastes bitter like the vomit she was feeling in her mouth. 

“No, you’re Betty Cooper. I’d argue that’s even better,” he smiled to her, and she shook her head, her smile a bit brighter this time, as they sat in the garden’s bench, watching the night away.

_But there was no sweet memory to carry from that night, Betty. Looking back, that was the day darkness started to hover over you. You wouldn’t forget how big you were and therefore how little you meant. You had to something. Keep doing something to solve that issue._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to vickliebold for correcting this chapter for me. Lord knows I need it. HAHAHA


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic content on Maniac behavior. If you are tickled by it, don’t read it.

**Chapter 6 - Side B**

 

31, October, Tuesday – Riverdale

 

_We were born to be alone_

_Everybody all alone_

**Xtatic Truth – Crystal Fighter**

* * *

It was lighting up. Everyday brighter than the one before. The fast breathing in her chest, all her senses heightened. Her own skin would hurt from touching because she could feel it, she could feel it all. She could feel everything, and it should’ve scared her, but she was hopelessly drowning in it, too consumed by the feeling to acknowledge it as anything but _life._

One may think they knew life because they had no other choice than to live it, but they didn’t know it. Not really. It wasn’t really living when you were on the edge looking down, dipping your toes in the water, too afraid to dive.

Betty looked life in the eye, and it was erratic.

She belonged to the Southside High district now, since her mother – who was eternally in denial about so many things that made Betty want to vomit – moved them to the Sunnyside Trailer Park.

The fight to drop Riverdale High was not an easy one and her mother would use Jughead Jones – of all people - as an example of how committing to studying in the other side of town was possible, but Riverdale High was her father’s dream, and it lacked _that_. That thing she couldn’t quite grasp. That thing that made her wake up in a wildfire. That life.

She then told Alice that she needed the change because the memories from her old school were too painful and her mother hugged her and told her she understood, but Betty was entirely sure they weren’t talking about the same thing. Betty won the fight anyway so she didn’t bother telling her mother that what was truly painful to her was feeling like she was dragging around all day, feeling like she wasn’t alive.

Something has shifted. Something throughout those two weeks revolving around her father’s death changed her.

And she knew _it_ wasn’t there before. She knew she used to be the moping type: about Archie, about grades, about whether the Vixens would let her in that season, about anything, really. But then came the car crash and so many things were brought to light that she could no longer settle for her old ways. She was done moping, it was time to let it all out now.

Southside High was dirty in a way that no amount of scrubbing would ever get it to look right. It was the floors, the walls and that beeping equipment on the entrance to make sure no one was caring melee weapons with them. But the people, yes, the people were the real difference there: they were all in a haze. Perpetually emerged in their own thoughts and lives to pay anything any mind. They were doing drugs on the corridors and screaming enraged and leaving the classrooms as if they were alone in it. Everybody, all alone.

And since Betty was alone herself, since she no longer fitted in her little old life, she felt ecstatic. They were all alone together.

“I made some arrangements since you insisted on going to Southside High.”, Jughead stopped by the day before she transferred schools. It was drizzling and she told him to get in, but they both heard Alice moving stuff around the house and settled for talking in the rain.

“Arrangements, have you?” Betty had a pink coat on, and it hit her that she was sick of that color.

“I have, indeed,” he stopped. Jughead looked down and kicked some stone that was by the stairs of Betty’s trailer, he usually kicked thing when he was deciding on whether to say something or not. “You know how my father is in deep with the Serpents, right?”

There was a glimmer in his eyes, and it was almost unnoticeable by the stern look he was giving her, his beanie shouting out like the odd man out in his body posture, but there was a glimmer, yes. A small fraction of hope that that conversation would go his way. Whichever it was.

He expected her to tell him off, she imagined. To be defensive. To be anything the old Betty would. But she wasn’t that girl anymore.

“Yeah, I know of it, so what?” she held in a chuckle when he breathed out audibly.

“Well, it turns out that you don’t get to choose all your friends when your father is in a gang,” he was trying to ease her in whatever deal he had made that had to do with her, Betty knew, but he was clumsy and using too many words and it was almost tragic to watch. “So I know a bunch of people that go to Southside.”

“A bunch of Serpents, you mean?” because whoever she was about to become, wouldn’t be a person that would ever miss an opportunity to poke Jughead.

“Yes, that’s what I mean. Yes.”

There was another pause and it was annoying because he was looking at her like he was expecting something and she thought that the whole human period on earth didn’t last as long as the time he wasted by not talking.

“What are you expecting me to say, Jug?” He had friends out of school. Probably had something to do with his family business. It was all a given, wasn’t it?

It was the expectation that killed her. Not his expectations towards her per say, but what he assumed would happen if he ever brought that part of his life up with her. She must have been one tied pain in ass for her friend to be that awkward about his living arrangements around her.

“Nothing, I actually wanted to tell you that I spoke to them so you’d be protected and, you know, have some company.” _Protection_ was a funny concept because it came from the idea that one wanted to avoid danger. That one wanted to be perpetually on the edge of life.

“Protected against what, exactly?” Jughead did a movement with his hands and his head like he didn’t know what to tell her and it was obvious to her that whatever he was expecting about this conversation was different from what he got.

“Better safe than sorry, Betts,” he had a small smile on his lips and she thought that he should smile more often. Get out of his shell.

“Is safe really all that good?” _safe._ That word. She wasn’t sure that what she wanted from Jughead, or for anyone for that matter, was safeness.

“Guess you’ll find out,” and he smiled again.

On the next day, a boy who answered by Sweet Pea asked her if she wanted to sit with them. With the Serpents. She took her backpack off her shoulders, and suddenly everybody stopped talking, and there was an awkward vibe around them, and she wanted to laugh because she was the one who was supposed to feel pressured, not them.

A girl arrived, and she sat on the table, eating an apple; a camera hanging around her neck. She didn’t seem neither fazed nor hostile towards Betty and she thought that maybe she had found a new friend because life was too short to feel any sort of weirdness when someone new merely sits at your table.

And so everybody started talking amongst themselves again when Betty introduced herself to the girl that was named Toni and she let out a loud “Oh yeah! Jughead’s friend!” and they went on about how Betty, with her blonde locks and big green eyes, was not what she pictured when Jughead mentioned the whole deal.

She laughed. And maybe she was supposed to feel offended that somehow the girl implied that she didn’t look like she belonged there, but really, who the hell did? Betty was done feeling sorry for herself and was merely looking for a light to match her own in the sea of wanderers that was Southside High.

Betty felt more and more that life was not about connections, but about experiences. It was burning alive. It was diving in without ever testing the waters. It was feeling so much that it seemed impossible to absorb it all. It was letting go of the past because no one should ever have the power to say to another how life is supposed to be lived.

She felt alive the more she walked away from her father’s steps, the more she engrossed in conversation with people he wouldn’t approve, the more she tasted it all.

“You don’t happen to have a motorcycle by any chance, do you, Betty?” Toni asked her when they were about to leave for the day, collecting her materials over the table.

“It’s on my to-do list, but no,” Betty said as she too threw everything she had in her backpack, both leaving the class. “Not yet.”

Sweet Pea and this other boy who they called Fangs were waiting for them as they stepped out the Calculus class and started walking with them. As if they were a union. As if together they came alive.

“Well… me and the boys were thinking of going for a ride at the edge of the city.”, Toni told her, and the boys snickered behind her like she wouldn’t be the type of person to would go for this kind of thing. Like they knew her, “Do you want to join?”

But they didn’t know her. Hell, she was having a hard time knowing herself. There was an inner indecisiveness as wide and wavering as the ocean. Aching for experiences. Aching to be something. Feel something.

“I was in when you said _edge._ ” That’s what life was, wasn’t it? Always on edge.

“Won’t mommy dear get worried about you?”, Sweet Pea asked in a mockery tone, and she decided she didn’t care because, in truth, she didn’t care about him.

Betty thought about her mom and her unstoppable obsession about the earring they found in Hal’s car. She thought about her going over her father’s stuff, looking for its owner. She thought about how clung to the past she was that she had barely acknowledged that their lives were different now, that her three bedrooms house was now a trailer and she was out of a job. She thought about it, and frankly, it all seemed pathetic to her.

“That’s the secret, Sweet Pea, she is always worried.” Worried about everything but living her goddamn life.

“All right then, it’s settled!” Toni said, giving Betty a smile.

They told her to hold tight.

It was about five-ish o’clock when they came by, and Betty was about to give up and consider the whole thing a prank because it seemed to her that she was waiting forever. They didn’t tell her exactly what time they would pass by her place and pick her up but every minute she spent inside that house was a minute closer to insanity. She tried doing her homework or reading a book but the urge to move and to be doing something with herself was overpowering and she felt like screaming.

Living was this complicated thing because people invented rules to restrain themselves from life itself and it all looked ironic because she couldn’t quite pin point the objective of living if it was not to be done without restrains.

She didn’t want to tell her mother where she was going. She also didn’t want to hold tight to Sweet Pea’s motorcycle as they slowly started to back away from her home, but one had to learn how to choose their battles. Betty held on to the handles by the sides of her bench after living her mother by saying she would merely meet some new friends from school.

Her mother started filling her with questions, of course, but she shouted out that she was late and hid under the window, waiting - hoping - for them to show up.

And now the Trailer Park was behind them, and Toni was on the back of Fangs bike, not very far from her, and for the first time in that whole day, she actually felt like smiling.

Life was looking her in the face again so she ignored all the cautionary tales she was told and stretched out her arms, trying to take flight, leaving everything behind. She wanted movement. She wanted the wind hitting hard on her face. She wanted the chilly night air hurting her cheeks. She was hoping to get lost in a whirlwind of cold and heat, of breathing, of life and never look back.

She wanted everything. Everything at once.

“All good back there, princess?”, Sweet Pea’s voice was muffled by the wind and the helmet he was wearing. She denied wholeheartedly that he gave her his helmet as he tried to when he picked her up.

And there it was. Her daddy’s word. The fucking word. The word that she couldn’t shake out as hard as she tried.

“Never ever call me princess again, Sweet Cheeks.” It was only fair that she would call him something offensive since he took the liberty of doing the same with her.

“You’re not how I pictured when I first saw you,” he merely laughed instead, and Betty thought for the hundredth time that day alone about what kind of impression people had on her and how she could make it stop.

“Maybe you should stop making assumptions based on people’s appearances,” it was not her fault she looked like the consummation of the American Dream. The boring façade that tricked people into thinking life was about getting themselves a good job and doing the same thing over and over again until they died without having ever lived in the first place. “It’s not like I can help it.”

He stayed in silence for a while, and she thought that maybe he was considering her point until he shrugged and turned his head slightly to talk to her again:

“You can let go your hair.”

“But it will get all tangled.”

“Isn’t that exactly the point?” and she could see that he was wearing a little smile through his helmet.

Wasn’t that the point, though? Yes, it would get tangled. Yes, it would be a bitch to fix it, but there would be an undeniable proof that she did it. That she lived through that moment.

Betty let go her hair and knocked her head to the sides letting the strands loose. The blonde locks flew against the wind, leaving her face free of her hair. She let go of the handles again and stretched her arms to the sides of her body, really feeling the wind this time.

She still felt like forgetting everything that ever was when she went back home that night and on the days that followed. She would lay her head on her pillow and feel her closed eyes tremble, making it impossible to keep them shut. She read while phasing around her tiny room all the books she had on her backpack over and over again, yet nothing seemed to fix in her brain. At school she would look at the blackboard, with all the information she had read the previous night, yet nothing seemed to click so she just stared at it harder and harder until her eyes burned.

Having lunch and going back to classes was as much of a blur as a chore: smilingly impossible because she wanted to walk around the classroom, as being standing still physically hurt.

It was Friday night, and she noticed that the nimbleness of the day mixed with her irrational thoughts seemed to be coming together as one as she tried desperately to tell them apart and appear normal. There would be no space for insanity that night, as far as she could say, while looking for something to wear. She settled for jeans and a white t-shirt and would rather die than put one of her sweaters on. Betty found a brown leather jacket, as she was looking through her mother’s clothes, that was a bit too big for her, but ironically it seemed to fit her better than all the other clothes she ever owned.

Her mother took her to Pop’s, as she was about to meet with her friends, and she rolled her window all the way down thought the role drive despite the fresh air of the middle of October. She didn’t wear the ponytail that night.

 

“So, Betty, now that you survived through a whole week on Southside High, tell us how it feels to be a badass.” Veronica always had a chocolate milkshake with vanilla and Betty wondered if she did it just because the color of the beverage looked great as compared to the color of her skin.

Her hair was smooth as ever, and she had her pearl necklace on, just as her designer clothes, handbag, and shoes. It was weird how time seemed to have stood still for Veronica, in opposite to the hurricane that was now Betty’s life.

“Come on Veronica, it’s not like Betty would change in over a week to please whoever it is she is going to school with.” One week and a half had passed, and Archie Andrews’ praises did nothing to burn her insides like it used to do. It did nothing for her.

It was like being in an out of body experience where she saw herself interact with her friends, but her soul was not there anymore no matter how hard she tried. She tried to ignore the agitation she felt by being seated down at the booth and how bright the neon lights hit her eyes, but it was no use because her friends seemed to be the same while she was something else.

“Archie is right, V, I wouldn’t change to accommodate anyone’s expectations of me.” The words sounded alien to her own ears, but she would have said them with such naturality only a few short days ago. She briefly wondered if what she was saying was right and if she would change regarding someone else’s need, but the only one that mattered to Betty right now was herself.

“But she would go motorcycle riding with a bunch of imbeciles.” Jughead plucked a fried potato inside his mouth, and the sound of his voice startled her because he kept it quiet until that very moment.

Saying he was displeased was the understatement of the year, as he went on and on yelling at her the day that followed her bike ride. He was convinced that it was dangerous and she couldn’t stop thinking that he still portrayed her as daddy’s little princess, so she fought back and called him names. And he called her some names himself, and it felt good because they were screaming at each other and it was eating her alive. At the end of the match, he told her to do whatever she wanted, and she told him she would because that was the truth.

That was, until that very day.

“Oh please, are you going to go at it again?” And she was ready. Ready for him if he would. And never mind that it wasn’t their neighborhood but the middle of Pop’s. She would do it, She would watch herself burn in flames with him all over again. “Aren’t they your friends?”

“That’s why I can tell you with certainty that they are stupid.” He rolled his eyes before slapping the table and looking at her. Archie and Veronica exchanged looks between themselves.

“You were the one who introduced me to them, remember?” She slapped the table as well and raised her body so she would be closer to him on the other side of the table.

“Hold on, hold on, I’m still at the motorcycle part,” Archie, who was sitting beside her, brought her to her seat again. She kept on throwing daggers at Jughead.

“Thank you, Archie, so am I,” Veronica said, crossing her arms over her chest, “You went motorcycle riding with a bunch of people you don’t know?”

“I do know them, Jug introduced us.”

“I did n… ok, I may have introduced you to them, yes, but I didn’t tell you to jump on their back rides,” and she would be damned if he thought that because he introduced her to those people, she would live by his rules.

“Does your mother know about it?” Archie suddenly asked.

“It sounds extremely dangerous, B.” Veronica agreed, nodding her head.

“Stop! Stop all of you.”, and what killed her was that _she knew_ there was no rational explaining for her motorcycle adventure, obsessive book reading, phasing around and absorbing none of what happened around her, “None of you have any idea what’s been like lately, and I needed to do something to get out.” But that was her now. And there was no use explaining for people who were on the edge what it was like aching to get in. “I admit, Sweet Pea is not going to cure cancer, but for a ride to take my head out of things he is good enough.”

Veronica and Archie exchanged glances again, while Jughead hung his head and stared at his cup of coffee. It was no use talking to them. No use at all.

“I’m sorry, Betty. I clearly wasn’t seeing the whole picture,” Archie patted her on her shoulder, obviously still imagining she was in grief, and it was an awkward move, but an affections none the same. Betty didn’t correct him.

“Neither was I, Betty, just give me a call next time. Maybe we can a find a way to blow out some steam in the least potentially destructive way.” Betty smiled and nodded her head, knowing full well that she would never make that phone call.

Looked like Hal Cooper did have his uses after all.

And that was all Betty could have expected, really. If it were up to her, she would have kept her adventure to herself, but since Jughead had to go and tell everybody, half-heartedly accepting kind words was all she could do. They didn’t know what was like lighting up. They didn’t ache for it. They didn’t understand.

“I have a bike, you know,” Jughead said quietly, playing with his spoon inside his cup.

“What?” Betty asked him because that could only be a mistake.

“I said I have a bike,” he articulated his words this time, turning his whole body towards her, his elbows on the table. “If you want to blow some steam just get by my place and I’ll take you for a ride.”

She looked at him for what it seemed to be hours. He was there, with her friends, demonizing her for choosing to live carelessly and now he offered his hand to take her through her newfound rush for adrenaline?

“I… Sweet Pea is not that bad, you know,” she arched an eyebrow at him challenging him to come forward, to make his stand: would he be her ally in her quest to find herself or would he stand with the others in the background?

“I know, I’d just feel better if you came to me,” he looked at her and gave her a smile, the spoon still tangling on his fingers.

“I guess I can do that.”

“Deal, then,” and then maybe, just maybe, Jughead was to be excluded from that mundane narrative that Archie and Veronica seemed so engrossed in. Maybe, just maybe, he would be part of her story.

 

She chose to walk back home, and Jughead walked beside her even though it was a goddamn long walk. She had to stretch her legs and let out some of the energy that seemed to continually roam in her veins, all that she held back while jittering at Pop’s booth. She felt like running and screaming, but she’d just got back to speaking terms with Jughead, so she held herself and hated every minute of it.

Funny enough, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him.

He was silent and had his hands were shoved into the pockets of his jackets, and he made no objections to her decision to walk for miles instead of taking up Veronica’s offer for a ride. He looked down, and some of his black hair fell from his beanie over his eyes, but he didn’t seem daunted as he kept kicking stones and leaves on the way home.

He was a mystery in the sense that he kept on doing the same things that he always did, but made little to no objections to the things Betty wanted to do – minus the whole dispute over who would take her for a ride on their motorcycle thing. He was floating in space as he was halfway in and halfway out of Betty’s new life goals and she didn’t know what to expect from him anymore.

And that uncertainty was what made her keep him around. Ironic, she knew, but who, in their quest for life, could deny a mystery?

They ended up talking halfway through their destination, and it was about nothing and everything at the same time and Betty caught herself smiling when she realized she was engrossed in conversation about the book 1984, from George Orwell and how since reading it Jughead avoided surveillance cameras everywhere he went.

He told her people missed her and she knew he meant it because he wasn’t the type to say those things just to ease someone’s mind. She told him she really liked Toni and couldn’t remember hearing Fangs’ voice and he laughed because he couldn’t recall ever seeing him talk either.

Jughead was easy to talk to when he was not shouting in her face and trying to tell her how to live her life, and she said to him that, to which he only sort of apologized, as he still thought the idea of riding without him around was stupid and dangerous. She tried to tell him there would be nothing he could do if there was any kind of accident and he answered by saying he knew that, but he couldn’t stop feeling angry regardless, and she understood what he meant and let the whole deal slide because she was angry all the time.

She thought about telling him that she felt entirely off the rails and couldn’t care less because feeling lost was the closest to feeling alive she had ever felt, but she was afraid he would interpret it as a side effect from her father’s death and all that was happening to her, as shocking and mind-numbing as it was, was the opposite of the idea of grief.

Betty also didn’t tell him that it crossed her mind that it was weird how little she missed her father, even though he was a cheating bastard, but the truth was that he was the standard for Betty’s old life and she felt repulsed by it even more than she felt by him.

Jughead kissed her on the cheek when he dropped her off, and she couldn’t remember him ever doing that before, so she did her best not to blush and bid him goodbye as she walked through the door asking herself what was that and begging for it, the hot ball in her stomach, the heart racing in her chest, to never stop.

On Monday the tingling feeling left by the chaste kiss Jughead had given had all but disappeared, and it seemed like a distant, vague memory in her head, just like the books she obsessively read over and over again, unable to fix on her brain.

“I got a tremendous ass-wiping from Jughead about taking you to ride with us,” Toni said as they sat down to have lunch. Sweet Pea let out a small laugh and nodded his head, as Fangs stood perfectly still.

“Oh, so did I, if it serves as any consolation,” Betty noticed that she had too little in her plate next to the other three, but couldn’t bring herself to eat more food even though she tried.

“It kind of does, thank you,” Toni cheered raising her fork in her direction.

They were all eating their foods, and Betty felt a strange prickly sensation inside of her that seemed to subside her hunger and made her want to move around.

“So, what are we doing today?” She asked, playing with the salad on her plate.

“What do you mean?” Toni looked at her with her enormous brown eyes and then to the left and to the right as if she was missing something.

“Are we going to go for a ride, dance or… I don’t know, something?”

“Betty, the Calculus test is tomorrow, you know that,” Toni was still staring at her like she was crazy.

Fine, she did have the fucking Calculus test the following day, but all the wandering around her room with her books in hand didn’t seem to help one bit in her intent to appease herself while doing something useful simultaneously.

“Yes, I do. So what?” So she might as well do something useless instead.

“I’ve got to study, I can’t do anything today,” Toni looked like she was talking to a five-year-old about the most obvious thing in the world and Betty missed the part where she was supposed to care.

“You’re boring, Topaz,” Betty told her, finally taking a tomato to her mouth.

“You should follow my lead, Cooper,” Toni gave her a small smile and shook her head, and Betty knew that it was all she was going to get from Toni that day.

Betty shook her head as well because in her mind it was inconceivable to stay home to do anything. She needed to get out, she needed to see, she was the light that had to keep on burning and burning until all the madness inside her head made any sense.

She would feel goosebumps all over her body and a need to get out of her own skin if that made any sense. She was uncomfortable. And aware, aware of everything, her eyes seemed to have a will of their own, and she would look and try to absorb things that before she would never spare a second glance at, but now she did because she just wanted to light up.

It just needed to get brighter and brighter and brighter until she wouldn’t feel anymore. Until she would feel everything.

The first time she ever heard Fangs speak was after that day’s class when he invited her to drink with them behind the school that same afternoon. She was dumbfounded by the fact that he did speak and that apparently Jughead didn’t scare them away from her to the point that they wouldn’t invite her to do things.

Maybe they also felt that he had no saying in what they did together after he introduced them. Somehow she doubted their resolve would go that far, but she went along with their drinking plan anyway.

They were seated in the bleachers on the last roll to the left, seemingly invisible to anyone how wasn’t in the field and actively looking for someone at the seats. She wondered briefly if that’s what bad boys did: hid from view and drank their lives away, when she decided she didn’t care and she would have drunk it in the middle of the corridors if the chance had presented itself.

She only drank two times before and they were both in the New Year’s Eve when her mother would give her a little bit of champagne just to click their glasses when the clock struck midnight. What Sweet Pea and Fangs had in hand now was some cheap vodka in a paper bag, and she thought she should have been worried about it.

But like with everything else that was happening to Betty, she was unable to be fazed and kept wondering what taste would vodka have and what she could do with herself once she was inebriated enough later.

She called it her newfound boldness, but in reality, she was drifting out in space, clinging to anything that had a little bit of sparkle.

Vodka tasted like bleach, and she caught herself thinking if one could wipe the blood from a crime scene with it as she coughed uncontrollably. Fangs shook his head while Sweet Pea let out a small laugh extending his hand to Betty so she would pass the bottle. She took one big gulp before handing it over to him, no cough this time, he raised his eyebrows.

She could do this. It was like riding a motorcycle, not studying for a test or letting Veronica and Archie believe that her uncharacteristic behavior was due to her father’s death. It was that boldness again, unclear if it was a will to live or to find life somewhere else.

“So, what’s the goal here?” she asked as she took another sip, her fingertips and ears felt warm.

“To get shit-faced, obviously.” Fangs answered while shrugging his shoulder and it occurred to Betty that that was the second time he spoke next to her and that must mean that he was getting kind of familiar with her presence.

“That’s it?” she asked him while he stared at her motionless, obviously not waiting for that response. “It seems kind of a waste of resource.”,

“Well, do you have a better idea, Betty?” Sweet Pea had this mockery vibe about him that ticked her off when she first met him, but only made her smile now. Maybe they were indeed getting acquainted.

“As a matter of fact, I do, Sweet Pea,” she took the bottle from his hand and poured a bit of the drink on its tip, holding it like a glass. “We’ll drink ten shots. The first one to back down has to jump on the Sweetwater River.”

And Betty didn’t know if she could take her own bet because that was the first time she ever drank vodka in her life and it tasted like shit and made her feel warm inside already with only four gulps. But the point was never to win at the game, just to play it.

She wanted to feel it: the light-head sensation it was always associated with drinking, the erratic behavior, the will to party even if it was by herself. She felt really alone in her wiliness to risk it all while chasing a feeling, so maybe she could feel alone with them this time.

“Are you serious?” Sweet Pea looked from her to the tip of the bottle she was holding, a little smile playing on his lips.

“Like never before,” and she drank the first shot.

The coldness of the lake didn’t subside how warm she felt inside, and she shouted for the boys to get in as she dove above the water, wetting her head. Neither Fangs nor Sweet Pea were wearing pants or shirts, but it all seemed so unimportant that she threw her shirt on the shore alongside with their stuff when they got in.

They were drunk. Her ten shots game turned into twenty shots and then it was about finishing the bottle as soon as possible so they could go swimming. It was not the appropriate weather for a swim, but it was also not suitable for underages to drink so logic and good sense could go straight to hell.

She felt alive. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t walk straight because she was in the water and walking was secondary to shouting and splashing it at the boys because they were doing the same to her.

But like all good things, it wouldn’t last. The tangling and addictive sensation from the alcohol were given room to the coldness she felt with the water surrounding her. Betty asked Fangs if he was feeling the same and he told her it was the cold water that was sobering them up.

Sweet Pea said it was a good thing because they all had classes in the morning and waking up with a hangover was a bitch. Betty didn’t share their enthusiasm though. She wanted to keep feeling like she was floating and happy and even though Sweet Pea told her there would be another opportunity, she felt empty because she couldn’t feel it _right now._

Fangs wore sunglasses to school the next day while Sweet Pea refused to even smell food. Betty went to her Calculus test and, even though she didn’t do the best job of her life, as she still couldn’t absorb anything it was in the book, she didn’t feel any of the things the boys described.

“Maybe you have a magical liver,” Toni suggested as the four of them left the school and Betty shrugged her shoulders because even though she dodged the bullet that effected Fangs and Sweet Pea, it didn’t seem like a blessing because they were feeling things that she was not. And she wanted to. She wanted it all. Even if it meant feeling shitty.

On Halloween, Toni asked her to a party, and it seemed like a big deal by the looks the guys were giving her. It was in a place called White Wyrm and apparently that was a Serpent thing and it was only then that she realized that she no longer thought of any of them as members of a gang or Jughead’s friends. It was only then that she was made aware that there was still a gap between them.

It was a blinding painful realization that made her smile freeze on her face as she felt cold, alone and lost all of a sudden. It was the void. The same void she felt when her father passed. The same void she filled with rage. The same void she was now filling with life, but it was all so lonely that she felt like crying, but couldn’t, because Toni was still waiting on a confirmation on her invitation.

Her breathing was getting caught up in her throat as she said yes way lower than she usually spoke, but it made the three of them smile to her anyway, and for a second she couldn’t understand why because she wasn’t really part of their world.

Both Fangs and Sweet Pea told her not worry because they would speak for her if anything happened and she looked dumb folded at them for a while before realizing that she was supposed to thank them because they were actually going out of their ways for her.

She was dressed in black shorts, black t-shirt, and brown leather jacket when Sweet Pea swung by her place to pick her up and he asked her if she didn’t feel like wearing a costume, because one could use whatever they like in White Wyrm since no one cared. She refrained from telling him that because she was all in black, she could be the void herself and just answered that she didn’t have time to think about any costume instead.

They walked for a little while and he was unusually talkative that day and it downed to her that he was happy he was going to that party. Glad that she was going with them, even, since he chose to confide in her with all the idiocy that was going through his brain.

She was barely listening to him as they were getting closer because she was concentrated on the air that seemed to be shifting with each step they took, but she let out a small smile because he was clearly in his element, dragging her along like she was one of them with him, making her feel less alone.

And then he opened the door. The pungent smell of alcohol, wood, and cigarettes feeling her nostrils to the point she thought she might want to sneeze, but she didn’t, she narrowed her eyes to get used to the glowing lights inside the huge bar and passed through the doors Sweet Pea still held open. And she was in.

There was no void this time, the feeling forgotten in her brain as she looked up and saw all the lights going a different direction, feeling intoxicated just by standing under it. The music was loud, and people had to shout at each other to talk and she felt like laughing and dancing and drinking all the same time.

Toni to them was waving from the bar, and Betty had to squeeze her way in to get to her, the smell of leather in the jackets of everyone she passed through filling the air. Toni was in a good mood. She gave the other a small shot glass as soon as Betty reached her, its liquid transparent, with a smell so strong it made her eyes water.

She drank it all at once.

“We usually don’t let outsiders in, so be careful.” Toni told her three shot down the road, a lazy smile on her face.

Betty knew, oh yes, Betty knew. But what once felt like a distance was now more like a stretch on their part, like they were making an effort to have her around, so she could be with them, so she could see and taste all the intoxicating nuances in the White Wyrm.

“I’m not locked in here with you, Toni.” She told her, laughing at herself about the silly reference she was about to make. “You are locked in here with me.”

She downed another shot thinking of how much of an imbecilic nerd she was and how some things could never be changed even though she was miles away from her old habitat, feeling quite tipsy from the alcohol Toni was shoving into her.

Toni didn’t seem to follow the joke, though. She looked at Betty like she just revealed she was a Serial Killer and the whole thing was just so stupid that made Betty laugh out loud like she hadn’t in a long time. She tapped the still shocked Toni on the shoulder and went for a walk around the bar, feeling full and happy and drunk. Feeling like that was what she was looking for. Feeling alive.

She danced. Betty was usually okay at choreographed dances, but she just didn’t have the imagination to come up with her own steps on a dance floor, but that day was not like any other day and she was no longer like the old Betty, so she moved her hips and raised her arms to the ceiling, messing up her hair on the way down. It was more than being intoxicated, it was _feeling_ intoxicated: like her heartbeat was in sync with the song they were playing, as every change of the lights meant a new movement of her body. Like she was alone in that sea of lonely people, and they came as one.

“Betty!” Suddenly she heard Jughead’s voice. He tapped on her shoulder, and she felt silly for trying to straighten herself up from the probable hot mess that she was right now.

She didn’t owe him anything. He introduced her to his friends and then proceeded to make an ass of himself the minute she’d shown signs of getting along with them. They did have an okay time getting back from Pop’s on foot, but if Betty were to be completely honest, the reason she was trying to look put together in front of him at all, was because of the small kiss he gave her on the cheek. It tickled her insides, and that’s all she really took from that evening.

“Jug!” Her hair was beyond repair, so she just dropped her hands to her rip instead. He raised an eyebrow.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m good, good. And you?” She couldn’t stop but wonder how one could feel so full of life while looking so shitty at the same time. She made one more attempt to fix her hair but gave up halfway.

“I’m… why are you acting weird around me?” He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at her. She smiled back and promised herself she would keep the real reason she was hovering around him a secret even under a gunpoint.

“Well,” there was only one thing to do, really: revert blame, “don’t take this the wrong way, but it kind of feels like my parole officer came to a party with me.”

“Is this still about the bikes?” He took the beanie off his head and messed with his hair, he had his mouth open like he couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Oh my God, Betty, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I lost it with you.”

She had to hold herself not to laugh because she had actually managed to get a full apology from him and it didn’t even matter anymore.

“I’ll excuse you if you guarantee it won’t happen again.”

“And I’ll guarantee if you promise not to leave me out next time,” he put his beanie back on, staring at her with his eyes as cuts.

“Deal.” She offered him a hand, and he immediately shook it.

“Deal.”

It was a bit awkward. The music was still loud in their ears, and people all around them were dancing. He looked just how she felt: not knowing exactly what to do in front of each other. He was still the dysfunctional marriage of her life now and then; a life she wanted to walk away from, needed to walk away from, but on the other hand here he was, standing alone and vulnerable in front of her, like asking her if it was okay that he was part of her life now as well.

“You know it’s a big deal that you’re here, right?” He asked her as he leaned in close, talking on the base of her ear.

“Oh yeah, Toni told me.” She said, and then looked at him. He was expecting, waiting for her to let him in. “I told her I wasn’t locked in here with them. They were locked in here with me,” so she did.

“Alan Moore, nice. Did she get it?” She felt like laughing because he was the only other dork she knew that would recognize her words.

“No, I sounded like a total psychopath,” and it was good for him to know how much he was worth, that there was a part in her that no matter what, he would always be able to recognize, “I don’t think they are ever bringing me here again,” he hugged his own torso and laughed, probably picturing Toni’s face and how much of an ass she made of herself.

 

“Stop laughing already!” but it didn’t really matter, because she was laughing too.

“You are in the Serpents’ den, and the psycho is you!”

“Well, I’ll lend her my Graphic Novel, it’s a good read,” and she mentally slapped herself for not calling it a comic book, but Jughead was one to keep up with her regardless. The only one who could, actually.

“Psychopaths love it, I hear.” He had his hand partially covering his mouth, and his eyes shone from laughing to tears.

It occurred her that he was living as well: laughing as hard as he could with reckless abandon from a silly miscommunication caused by her, talking to her at the White Wyrm, apologizing for whatever it was she felt he should apologize for. They had known each other for the majority of their lives and he knew all about the person she used to be, but being there maybe meant that he wanted a part in whatever it was she was about to become.

“Hey, not that I’m not glad to meet a fellow Alan Moore admire, but what are you doing here? You hate parties.” She said, because she knew him just as much as he knew her, or at least whatever version of himself he’d presented her all over those years. Judging from her own experience, those things were harder to tell than they looked.

“Well, my other option was to go with Archie and Veronica to Cheryl Blossom’s Halloween party, so you see that I wasn’t left with much of a choice,” he said matter-of-factly, and she nodded. It was understandable.

“Are Archie and Veronica dry humping each other with their eyes, completely oblivious that everyone else can tell?” she asked him after a little while, and he turned his face energetically towards her.

“I can’t have a conversation with them anymore!” he threw his arms up in the air, and she laughed because it was so goddamn obvious that even Betty, who was trying to look past her old life, couldn’t miss it. “I feel like I’m waking in on mom and daddy having sex,” Betty nodded her head still laughing, wondering how long he had wanted to share this with someone.

“That alone should explain why you are here and not there, I agree. But I thought you’d avoid parties altogether. “

“Yeah, well, I wanted to see if you were handling the Serpents all right.” She gave him a pointed look, and the whole motorcycle fiasco flashed through her head. She raised a finger to tell him off once again, when he quickly added, “Not in a parole officer kind of way, just… checking up on you.”

He kicked the floor as he usually did when he was embarrassed or wanted to avoid a conversation, Betty looked at him and couldn’t stop herself from smiling at his awkwardness, knowing that whatever happened, that wouldn’t change. But if he wanted in he’d have to get all the way in – no scoffing at her for going out with her new friends, no judging her because she blew her Calculus test. She couldn’t tell him what to do with his life, but it was imperative that he didn’t feel as if it was his right to patronize her. She had Veronica and Archie securely locked in that position, the people who would always try to remind her who she was, tell her how wrong it was everything she was doing.

“I should warn you that I picked up on drinking and have no intention of stopping it even though you are here,” but if Jughead wanted to withhold this other spot in her life, if he wanted to be her friend even now, he was free to.

“Consider me warned,” he shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a small nod.

“In that case, let’s go.”

Betty dragged Jughead back to the bar where Toni was, and the two girls kept on drinking while he chatted with Sweet Pea, who was seated next to them. And then they danced, and drunk, and danced until it was all a blur and the party was over until all of them were asked to leave.

On the following day, she woke up at seven in the morning, still burning bright. Even brighter than the day before.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference time:  
> With her arms out stretched trying to take flight, leaving everything behind - Brothers on a Hotel Bed, Death Cab for Cutie  
> Everybody all alone – Xtatic Truth, Crystal Castle  
> There was an inner indecisiveness as wide and wavering as the ocean – Ride, Lana Del Rey  
> I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me. – Watchmen, Alan Moore  
> Serious note time:  
> As for the Maniac behavior displayed by Betty on this chapter, well… I’d strongly advise you to consult a doctor if you identify yourself in her. I’m writing from personal experience here and know full well how bad this can get. Also, if you have a friend that is showing this kind of behavior, beware: chances are they are going to endanger themselves, and you can help them. I have a friend who saved me. Get help, people. Get help. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I'm sorry for the delay, I'll try hard to update on a more timely matter from now on. (:


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